Mayor La Guardia Recordings

Fiorello Henry La Guardia
(1882 – 1947)

The President of the United States can be the most influential person in the land. Although there are Constitutional as well as political limitations to his powers, POTUS is seen to represent the entire nation thanks largely to the circumstance of his selection through the Electoral College.

State Governors usually do not hold as much sway as the National Chief Executive, even within the borders of their individual States, although the Gubernatorial Arena is a fertile ground for future Presidential contenders. By this reasoning, the Mayor of an individual city would seem to be doomed to national obscurity. However, the Mayor of an influential City might enter the national consciousness in surprising ways.

New York City's 99th Mayor rose to power using cross-party politics while fighting corruption with an almost religious zeal. Fiorello Henry La Guardia was born in the City to a Sicilian-born father and his mother was an Italian-Jewish immigrant. The senior La Guardia, who forbade his children from speaking Italian, joined the US Army and the family followed him to a series of outposts in the Western Territories.

Fiorello tried to join the Army at the beginning of the Spanish-American War but was rejected. He was to join his father in Cuba as a war Correspondent for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, but the senior La Guardia contracted hepatitis from contaminated rations and was discharged with a pension. The family moved back to Italy and Fiorello joined the US Diplomatic Corps.

Returning to the US in 1907, La Guardia worked as an interpreter at the Ellis Island Immigration Center before attending law school at New York University. While at NYU, he joined the Republican Club and supported Taft in the 1912 Presidential election. In 1914, La Guardia ran for a seat in the US House of Representatives but was defeated by the Tammany Hall Democratic machine.

However, LaGuardia won the seat in 1916 by only 357 votes, and in 1918 was supported by Tammany Hall to block the Socialists from gaining the Seat. La Guardia served as a pilot during the Great War and was awarded the Flying Cross by Italy's King Victor Emmanuel III. While serving in Europe, his Congressional seat was protected by the House Speaker.

La Guardia's supporters encouraged him to run for Mayor of New York in 1925, but, recognizing that he could not defeat Tammany Hall, declined the nomination. He did run in 1929 and was soundly defeated by the Tammany machine, but when the Tammany's influence ended with a bribery scandal, La Guardia took the Mayor's office in 1933.

The newly elected Republican Mayor's early priorities were dominated by the need to dismantle the corrupt Tammany Hall machine and replace its patronage-based civil service with a more representative meritocracy. La Guardia also sought to break the stranglehold of the banks and restore the City's financial health while expanding federally funded relief programs.

Republican La Guardia and Democratic President Roosevelt found themselves on the same side of many issues and became unlikely political allies. Twenty percent of the Civil Works Administration's (CWA) was allocated to New York City and La Guardia used the work relief funds to upgrade infrastructure.

La Guardia's policy of inclusion led to an uneasy alliance between New York's Jewish population, WASPs, and ethnic Germans and Italians. This fragile peace was challenged by the Harlem Riot of 1935, known as the first "modern race riot". The Mayor's Commission on Conditions in Harlem determined that the rioting had been spontaneous and without an outside organization or leadership.

The rise of Nazism in Germany coincided with much of La Guardia's mayoral tenure, and the Mayor took a decidedly anti-Fascist stance, further binding him to FDR. He led anti-Nazi rallies and supported the rescue of European Jews. One of his most powerful weapons was the appointment of ethnically and religiously diverse judges throughout New York's districts.

The Mayor's policy on organized crime gangs was "Let's drive the bums out of town". His first Mayoral act was to order the arrest of Lucky Luciano on whatever charges could be found, Frank Costello's slot machines were ruthlessly hunted down, and the Mayor even banned artichokes because the Mob had its hooks in the market.

During a NYC newspaper delivery strike in 1945, Mayor La Guardia read the Sunday funnies over the radio to keep the city's spirits up. His readings were broadcast on WNYC and quickly became popular with listeners, boosting the popularity of comic strips and demonstrating the power of art and entertainment to bring people together during difficult times. For these recordings, please see: Comic Parade.

Although the Gangsters would not be totally defeated by La Guardia's effort, his hands-on approach to dealing with crime made him beloved by New York's citizens. La Guardia left office at the end of 1945 and succumbed to pancreatic cancer on September 20, 1947. He was 64.